


This Song Saved My Life

by ellekim94



Series: Sun and Moon [4]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, HyuckNoRenMin!Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:02:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24955777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellekim94/pseuds/ellekim94
Summary: Jaemin made a decision to turn his life around.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin, Huang Ren Jun/Na Jaemin, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Na Jaemin, Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin
Series: Sun and Moon [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1796563
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	This Song Saved My Life

**Author's Note:**

> This is about Jaemin, so it's mostly Jaemin centric, but I love Taeil so he's also here. And it's already obvious I just love HyuckNoRenMin!Friendship too much.
> 
> Title is Simple Plan's song again. I actually didn't think the titles for the third part and the fourth part would match but I wrote them consecutively and these songs kept me company.
> 
> Do enjoy reading.

Taeil looked at the blue haired _visitor_ of the pet clinic, wandering around the puppies section but stopping in front of the sleeping golden retriever every now and then. He could tell he was being careful not to make any sound that might wake up the puppy but it seemed like he was also waiting for _Jaemin_ to wake up. He glanced at his watch. It was just a little after twelve. He wondered what brought the blue haired here without Donghyuck and the others.

He didn’t want to ask though. When Jaemin entered the clinic, he had that smile in his lips, the one that his coworker said made her swoon before she gave Jaemin another gaze with heart-shaped eyes and switched places with Taeil. Actually, it’s a good smile. But it’s not that smile that was enough to tell someone the blue haired has a good life, or even a good day. It’s not that smile that was obvious to anyone that he just graduated, or he just got hired, or something good happened. It was that kind of smile that was telling the world he was fine and those kind of smiles were _not_ fine.

If he has to tell the world he was fine through a smile, then he wasn’t really fine.

Taeil didn’t want to pry though. This was exactly the second time only he had seen Jaemin without Donghyuck. He knew he could consider himself at least a friend to the blue haired now but he still didn’t want to step in boundaries even though yes, they almost died together already.

“Do you think I can be vet?” Jaemin’s voice suddenly burst Taeil’s thoughts about not breaking boundaries but making sure the other was alright. It was so sudden that when Taeil looked at Jaemin, the blue haired was kneeling down in front of the sleeping golden retriever and glancing back at him.

He knew Jaemin didn’t enjoy engineering as much as Donghyuck did. He didn’t enjoy business, too, but it was his decision to finish it because he was on the last year already. He might _not_ have enjoyed the process but he still worked his way through it and he felt he deserved the recognition when he finished it. However, Jaemin was still in his sophomore year. If he already realized it wasn’t for him now, the earliest time to turn his life around was now. There was no point lying to one’s self. It was going to be a futile attempt because one knows what one wants, no matter how unclear or uncertain that may be.

“Yes.” Taeil’s answer was short but he hoped it contained the conviction he was feeling.

Jaemin looked a little surprised. He stood up and walked towards Taeil at the clinic’s reception. “Really?” he asked.

“Do you want to be a vet?” Taeil asked back first instead of answering.

The blue haired nodded, looking at the pet clinic assistant. “I mean, it’s probably going to be difficult to change from engineering to medical,” Jaemin began saying, “but if I think about what I want to do now, it’s that. My parents seemed unconvinced about it though.” He gave a smile. _That_ smile again.

“I think it’s a very short life,” Taeil answered. “There’s no reason not to go after what you want.”

“But what if it doesn’t work out?”

“You don’t need to know all the answers,” the other said with a light shrug. “No one does. But I think it’s our responsibility to live the life we want, not the life we settled for. I think we’re responsible for that ourselves. Not anyone.”

Jaemin looked at Taeil for a moment and the latter wondered if he said something bad, or stupid, but then, the blue haired smiled a different kind of smile and told him. “Donghyuck said the same thing, you know.”

“Huh?”

“When I told him I want to be a vet,” he explained. “It’s different words but it’s the same. He said, _‘What you settle for is what you’ll live.’_ ”

Taeil looked a little taken aback at what Jaemin said when the bell on the clinic’s door chimed and they both looked at who was coming at the clinic this late. It was Donghyuck with Renjun and Jeno following behind him. It looked like the blue haired expected his friends were coming because he said to them, “Took you long enough.”

“You _over sped_ again, dumbass,” Donghyuck glared at him.

“Have you told Taeil your ridiculous idea?” Renjun asked Jaemin.

“Oh, you colored your hair?” Taeil noticed there were streaks of pink in Renjun’s blonde hair.

Renjun grinned. “Just highlights,” he proudly said. “Does it look good?”

“It looked pretty on you,” Taeil nodded with a smile, giving him a thumbs up.

“Not yet. _Jaemin_ is still sleeping,” the blue haired answered the blonde.

“What idea?” Taeil curiously asked, looking from Renjun to Jaemin.

Donghyuck was already sighing at the idea _of_ the idea but it was Jeno who answered Taeil. “He wanted to get all _our_ four puppies.”

Obviously, Taeil looked surprised. It was true that their namesake puppies were still all there at the clinic. He honestly didn’t want to separate them from each other until they get a little more older and he was hoping they would be taken as a group but he knew that was almost impossible. Who wanted four different breeds of puppies all at once? When he told them that he named the puppies after them, he didn’t expect they would think of getting their namesakes.

“I already told you guys. I can’t have them separated,” Jaemin told them.

Taeil smiled in spite of the other three’s raised eyebrows and sighs at the blue haired. “Are you sure?”

“You’ll seriously give them to him?” Jeno asked, disbelievingly.

“Hey, Jeno,” Jaemin was already saying. “I can take care of them. I’m going to be a vet, remember?”

Jeno looked at him for a moment, years of knowing Jaemin would rather trash their kitchen trying different dishes than take care of himself coming to his mind when he realized that while Jaemin didn’t know how to notice a cut in his arm unless Donghyuck told him he was bleeding or Renjun slapped a bandaid on it, he always cooked for them and made sure they eat a lot, at least when they were in the hideout. He took care of them even when he couldn’t take care of himself. Honestly, he didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing. But there was one thing he was sure of, that Jaemin could take care of those puppies if he wanted to, or that he could do anything he wanted to do.

“Right,” the dark haired replied with a sigh. “If anything happens to _Jeno,_ I won’t forgive you.”

“Right,” Jaemin nodded, a little surprised but he looked more convinced now, like he was done convincing himself, or telling himself otherwise. “I’m going to be a vet.”

“Sure, you are,” the blonde easily said. “Then, Donghyuck can build a huge firm _with_ an art school, an investigation agency _and_ an animal hospital.” It goes unsaid but there was that, and then, they’ll never be separated. It didn’t need to be said. More so, because they were at the point of their lives when they didn’t truly believe they could never be separated. Separations were part of life but for the time before, now, and the foreseeable future, they were together and it should be enough.

Suddenly, _Jaemin_ started barking excitedly as he saw familiar faces.

“Oh, _my Jaemin_ is awake,” the blue haired ran towards the green cage.

“Your dog woke up _Donghyuck,_ ” Donghyuck complained.

“Hey, you can’t play favorites when you get all of them, okay?” Jeno reminded him.

“I swear to god if something happens to _Renjun —”_

“God, I am not going to play favorites, okay?” Jaemin retorted, looking back at his friends with squinted eyes. “And I am not going to let anything happen to _any_ of them.” He sighed and looked back at the golden retriever jumping and barking exuberantly. “They have your names. You guys should already know,” he finished quietly.

Or the blue haired thought he said _that_ quietly.

“What was that?” Renjun asked, already walking towards him, a huge grin plastered on his face.

“Did you guys hear that?” Jeno was also approaching, smiling.

“I didn’t hear it clearly. Can you repeat that, Jaem?” Donghyuck followed teasingly.

Taeil looked at the three of them having fun at Jaemin’s red face but he noticed Jaemin’s smile was back, that smile he has when he was with his friends. That genuine smile. He couldn’t help the same grin that was displayed in the faces of the four appear in his own that probably might not be a normal smile to have at midnights unless someone was a serial killer on loose, _or_ someone just validated then again that he wasn’t alone.

He should tell Jaemin that the puppies couldn’t be taken for at least another two weeks after proper vaccination but that could be done later. They were already reserved under Jaemin’s name anyway. He also thought that he should thank the blue haired, too, for being the reason of not separating a golden retriever puppy, a samoyed puppy, a german shepherd puppy, and a doberman puppy that looked more like family than some people he had seen.

**Author's Note:**

> I love this universe. Not all the painful things that they went through but how they found one another despite of all those painful things. I want to write happier stories in this universe. These kids + Taeil deserve more.


End file.
